Hey up all!
Now, what do you think is missing in today’s post, eh? Notice the concerning absence of a PDF or some pretentious title?

Where’s the bloody monday short?!

I cannot justify skipping this week’s short story – I admit, nothing I was producing seemed even remotely close to the quality I ought to serve on this blog (which is already very low!). I couldn’t shut off my inner critic – it kept yapping at me to redraft, restart and refute whatever I was writing. It was rather awful, and not helped by the sudden onset of a headache. Thus, I’ve decided to give it a break this week.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve done nothing.

Instead, to give the literary side of my mind a rest, I decided to do a bit of art. Don’t worry, it’s still relevant – I decided to draw one of my novel protagonists. You’ve already been acquainted with Naerun, the little sentient plant thing. Now, since I spoiled their look for you, you might be able to visualise them more clearly…but not lucidly. How BIG are virgadians supposed to be, compared to a man? Well, I did a little piece to help you visualise.

I’ve decided to take personification to the next level by estimating what Naerun would look like as a person!

(I’m sure I’ve buggered up anatomy somewhere, but Ne’ermind)

Naerun is about dead on average adult height for a virgadian at 0.95 cm (3 ft 3 in) – smaller than the average five year old. For a creature from their low gravity planet, this is actually relationally shorter than you’d think – there are beasts beyond the crater setting that could dwarf an elephant! Naerun’s got long, gangly arms and roots, a stupidly expressive face and absolutely no sense of fashion. They also have a permanently dilated left eye owing from head trauma in seedhood – something for the keen observer. Also, they smell of mint – thus their name, Naerun. Comes from the arabic نعناع (Naenae – don’t you dare), meaning that their name is pronounced NAH-run, not NAY-run. I’ve used latin,greek and arabic conventions for the nomenclature of my virgadian characters, if that’s alright with everyone.

Now, you may also notice that I’ve been referring to Naerun by gender Neutral pronouns – this is because the entire virgadian race is effectively sexless. I’ve done my best to try and make Naerun look androgynous even in my humanised design. I’m sure they won’t mind if you call them by any pronouns, since they don’t have any, but I’m going to stick to neutral. Be respectful, alright?

Anyhoo, hope you liked the art for this post!I intend to make more art of my stupid aliens, humanised or not, in future. Don’t worry – I shan’t let it take priority over my writing. If you want to sue me for not giving you the story as requested, let me know in the comments so we can arrange a court battle.

Have a good night, folkies!